{"id":182699,"date":"2015-06-28T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T00:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/06\/28\/why-does-this-remind-me-of-stalinist-architecture\/"},"modified":"2015-06-28T19:09:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T00:09:00","slug":"why-does-this-remind-me-of-stalinist-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/06\/28\/why-does-this-remind-me-of-stalinist-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does this Remind Me of Stalinist Architecture?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/AeqAWiz.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" bordercolor=\"white\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/AeqAWiz.jpg\" width=\"290\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>Positively Hideous<\/i><\/div>\n<p>It seems to me that whenever a reactionary government remains in power too long, it seems that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/jun\/26\/mother-canada-statue-nova-scotia-stephen-harper\">they develop an edifice complex<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">A plan to erect a 10-storey statue in a national park on one of Canada\u2019s most scenic shorelines has prompted outrage and sparked a growing political row as the country heads towards a general election this fall. <\/p>\n<p>The statue of Mother <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/canada\">Canada<\/a> \u2013 a cloaked female figure with her arms outstretched towards the Atlantic Ocean \u2013 is intended to honour the country\u2019s soldiers who died overseas. <\/p>\n<p>But growing anger over the plan has made it a new focus of opposition to the increasingly unpopular government of Conservative prime minister <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/stephen-harper\">Stephen Harper<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The proposed monument is an awkwardly remodelled, vastly upscaled version of an earlier statue, known as <a href=\"http:\/\/diplomatonline.com\/mag\/2014\/09\/vive-la-france-and-all-its-beauty\/diplomat_9-22-2014_0126\/\">Canada Bereft<\/a>, which adorns the memorial to the country\u2019s first world war dead near Vimy, France. <\/p>\n<p>The design has been widely lambasted both for its design and its proposed location in Cape Breton Highlands national park. In an editorial this week, the Globe and Mail newspaper described it as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/globe-debate\/editorials\/mother-canada-statue-is-hubristic-ugly-and-just-plain-wrong\/article25083043\/\">offensively tasteless<\/a>\u201d and a \u201chubristically arrogant act of arrogant unoriginality\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bigger-is-better approach to art is best left to Stalinist tyrants, theme park entrepreneurs and insecure municipalities hoping to waylay bored drive-by tourists,\u201d the paper wrote. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Stephen Harper has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/canada\/2012\/02\/17\/federal_scientists_say_theyre_being_muzzled.html\">gagged government scientists<\/a>,&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/opinion\/editorials\/2014\/08\/11\/charities_under_audit_fire_band_together_for_answers_from_canada_revenue_agency_editorial.html\">used the Canadian Revenue Agency to target charities who protest his agenda<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/opinion\/editorials\/2014\/08\/11\/charities_under_audit_fire_band_together_for_answers_from_canada_revenue_agency_editorial.html\">gutted the census<\/a>, among other things, and now we have this.<\/p>\n<p>My condolences to my friends in Canada, because this cannot be good, particularly if the Conservatives are not turfed out in the 2015 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Positively Hideous It seems to me that whenever a reactionary government remains in power too long, it seems that they develop an edifice complex: A plan to erect a 10-storey statue in a national park on one of Canada\u2019s most scenic shorelines has prompted outrage and sparked a growing political row as the country heads &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1167,1113,1000,978,979],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-canada","category-elections","category-politics","category-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}